Lewis Rand | Page 8

by the sleeve, but the latter was
intent upon the personage before him and did not heed.
"Yes," said the gentleman, "I am a lawyer. Are you going to be one?"
"I am," said the boy. "Will you tell me what books I ought to buy? I
have two dollars."
The other looked at him with keen light eyes. "That amount will not
buy you many books," he said. "You should enter some lawyer's office
where you may have access to his library. You spoke of the
Three-Notched Road. Are you from Albemarle?"
"Yes, sir. I am Gideon Rand's son."
"Indeed! Gideon Rand! Then Mary Wayne was your mother?"
"Yes, sir."
"I remember," said the gentleman, "when she married your father. She
was a beautiful woman. I heard of her death while I was in Paris."

The boy's regard, at first solely for the books, had been for some
moments transferred to the gentleman who, it seemed, was a lawyer,
and had known his people, and had been to Paris. He saw a tall man, of
a spare and sinewy frame, with red hair, lightly powdered, and keen
blue eyes. Lewis Rand's cheek grew red, and his eyes at once shy and
eager. He stammered when he spoke. "Are you from Albemarle, sir?"
The other smiled, a bright and gracious smile, irradiating his ruddy,
freckled face. "I am," he said.
"From--from Monticello?"
"From Monticello." The speaker, who loved his home with passion,
never uttered its name without a softening of the voice. "From
Monticello," he said again. "There are books enough there, my lad.
Some day you shall ride over from the Three-Notched Road, and I will
show you them."
"I will come," said Lewis Rand. The colour deepened in his face and a
moisture troubled his vision. The shop, the littered counter, the
guardian of the books, and President Washington's Secretary of State
wavered like the sunbeam at the door.
Jefferson ran his hand over the row of books. "Mr. Smith, give the lad
old Coke, yes, and Locke on Government, and put them to my
account.--Where do you go to school?"
The boy swallowed hard, straightened his shoulders, and looked his
questioner in the face. "Nowhere, sir--not now. My father hates
learning, and I work in the fields. I am very much obliged to you for
the books,--and had I best buy Blackstone with the two dollars?"
The other smiled. "No, no, not Blackstone. Blackstone's frippery.
You've got old Coke. Buy for yourself some book that shall mean much
to you all your life.--Mr. Smith, give him Plutarch's Lives--Ossian, too.
He's rich enough to buy Ossian.--As for law-books, my lad, if you will
come to Monticello, I will lend you what you need. I like your spirit."
He looked at his watch. "I have to dine at the Eagle with the Governor

and Mr. Randolph. When do you return to Albemarle?"
"To-morrow, sir."
"Then I may overtake you on the road. Once I did your father a good
turn, and I shall be glad to have a word with him now. He must not
keep the son of Mary Wayne in the fields. Some day I will ride down
the Three-Notched Road, and examine you on old Coke. Don't spare
study; if you will be a lawyer, become a good one, not a smatterer.
Good-day to you!"
He left the shop. The bookseller gazed after him, then nodded and
smiled at the boy. "You look transfigured, my lad! Well, he's a great
man, and he'll be a greater one yet. He's for the people, and one day the
people will be for him! I'll tie up your books--and if you can make a
friend of Mr. Jefferson, you do it!"
Lewis Rand came out into the sunlight with "old Coke" and Locke,
Plutarch and Ossian, under his arm, and in his soul I know not what
ardour of hero-worship, what surging resolve and aspiration. Young
Mocket, at his elbow, regarded him with something like awe. "That was
Mr. Jefferson," he said. "He knows General Washington and Marquis
Lafayette and Doctor Franklin. He's just home from Paris, and they
have made him Secretary of State--whatever that is. He wrote the
Declaration of Independence. He's a rich man--he's a lawyer, too. He
lives at a place named Monticello."
"I know," said Lewis Rand, "I've been to Monticello. When I am a man
I am going to have a house like it, with a terrace and white pillars and a
library. But I shall have a flower garden like the one at Fontenoy."
"Ho! your house! Is Fontenoy where Ludwell Cary lives?"
"No; he lives at Greenwood. The Churchills live at Fontenoy.--Now
we'll go see the Guard turn out. Is that the apple-woman yonder? I've a
half-a-bit left."
An hour later, having bought